So-called staple-in awning frames, across which canvas or other cloth material is stretched to form an awning, canopy, or other framed fabric structure, have become popular in recent years (the term “awning” will be used hereinafter to encompass all such structures). In general, a staple-in awning frame is fabricated with metal ribs that form the skeleton of the awning. At least some of the ribs, which generally are square or rectangular in shape, have a slot along their outside edges and a staple deck recessed within the slot. When a cloth material is stretched over the frame, it is tucked into the slots of the frame ribs and staples are driven through the cloth and through the staple deck to secure the material to the ribs. Once the cloth material is attached in this way, lengths of plastic or vinyl filler strips are snapped into the slots to hide the staples, cover the slots, and form an aesthetically pleasing appearance. This method of fabricating cloth awnings has proven superior to old tie-on and other methods.
In many cases, fabric awnings are provided with ceiling panels that are mounted in the underside rib grid of the awning to hide internal awning structure and provide an aesthetically pleasing undesired appearance. Often, these ceiling panels are made of so-called egg crate, which is a molded plastic panel formed with crisscrossed ribs that define a multitude of small square openings. Florescent lighting fixtures in suspended ceilings often employ such egg crate panels to diffuse the light and hide the florescent bulbs of the fixtures. When mounting egg crate panels in the underside of a staple-in awning, an inwardly extending lip or ledge must be provided around the grid openings formed by the ribs of the awning's underside. The panels are then mounted in the openings, where they are supported around their perimeter edges by the lips in much the same way that suspended ceiling panels are mounted within the grid of a suspended ceiling.
In the past, the lips for supporting ceiling panels in fabric awnings have been formed by awning installers in a variety of ways. Installers have been known, for instance, to rivet or screw strips of aluminum along the bottoms of the underside ribs of the awning to form lips. Manufacturers of awing rib stock also offer a variety of specialized extruded ribs that have the lip structure unitarily formed with the rib itself. These and other prior methods of forming the lips that support ceiling panels in fabric awnings have inherent problems. For example, ribs formed “on the fly” by attaching aluminum strips to the awning ribs often are considered unattractive, can be labor and time intensive to install, and provide no means for securely holding ceiling panels in place. Extruded ribs with pre-formed lips structures look better, but require that an inventory of specialized ribs for this purpose be fabricated, stocked, ordered, and shipped. In either case, lips made of aluminum or other metal do not match the white color of the egg crate ceiling panels, do not provide a clean perimeter around the underside of the awning, and are considered by some to be unsightly.
There exists a need for an awning system that addresses and solves the above and other problems and shortcomings. It is to the provision of such an awning system that the present invention is primarily directed.